Chinese COVID whistleblower due for release from prison after 4 years for 'provoking trouble'

Chinese authorities are expected to release a citizen journalist on Monday who was jailed for four years due to her documentation of the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak from Wuhan in early 2020.

Zhang Zhan, 40, was detained by Chinese authorities in May 2020 and later convicted by a Shanghai court in December 2020 for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison. 

She had traveled to Wuhan from Shanghai in early 2020 and began posting first-hand accounts including videos from "crowded hospitals and empty streets that painted a more dire picture of the pandemic than the official narrative," according to Reuters.